At the Devil's Door

A fragmented bundle of story pieces, At the Devil's Door doesn't add up as the sum of its parts.

The film effectively opens with a runaway teenage girl in the arms of a teenage boy in what looks to be a mobile home in the desert. He takes her to play a shell game unlike she's ever played and wins $500. While at her home later she is viciously attacked by an unknown force. Fast forward to Leigh, a hardworking real estate agent trying to sell the very house the girl in the last scene was attacked. While surveying the house she comes across the girl, who we believe is the daughter of the couple selling the house, and becomes the target of the ominous supernatural force; unknowingly bringing her sister Vera into its sights as well.

That convoluted summary and plot description is due to the plot being a loosely jumbled mess. To call At The Devil's Door a narrative would be an offense to all other narratives because it is so discordant from a typical plot. Nicholas McCarthy desperately and ineffectually tries to splice the tale together loosely by connecting the satanic undertone throughout. For a film marketing itself as a 'horror' it shies away from the truly terrifying aspects of demonic rage as a satanic being clamors to take a human form and is underwhelmingly tame.

At The Devil's Door is unnecessarily overcomplicated and contrived in trying to be different from typical demonic possession films. Incoherent perplexing chunks of the film should have been amputated and reevaluated. Editors are resigned to fade to black scenes to attempt to piece together a film with no cohesive plot direction. The fragmented plot and poorly conceptualized screenplay by McCarthy is only highlighted further by the forced dialogue between the characters.

Further, there are three protagonists. There is a formula to horrors and supernatural thrillers, a very simple formula, you must have one clear protagonist for the audience to follow. Ashley Rickards is great as the disturbed teen assaulted in the first scene who menacingly skulks about, tormented by the decision she makes to allow this dark force to enter her life. The next protagonist Leigh, played by Catalina Sandino Moreno, unfortunately gets featured far too much and further splinters the story. The film could have contained a single scene with her as a minor character in order to connect Rickards' plot to Vera, the sister, played by Naya Rivera. If it were not for the sufficient performances of Rickards and Rivera this film would be unwatchable. Once Vera is the primary focus for the film it picks up slightly but pathetically shuffles its way to a weak finale.

At The Devil's Door is a bland and disjointed interpretation of the hellish thrillers of yesteryear when humanity was afraid of losing its soul to Satan. With no clear plot and no serious scares it expediently fast forwards through the various shorts attempting to be key plot events to an ending the audience can not care or be invested.

This movie does not take long to start off, it actually got me of guard near the start of the movie,

As the movies goes on, it kind flows really well, it tends, to have right mix balance of decent creepy scenes and a few jump scenes , those scenes are really good .

I loved the power cut science was really good, a tad creepy and hospital scene with scan , loved that scene,

The only downside , that there were no ending to the movie, they did want to finish the story , there were no cliffhanger or anything , just ended with no payoff

The acting was decent not great

Really good movie 7 out of 10

The opening of this film is very slow and although it builds some important story it didn't draw me in until Vera (Naya Rivera) takes over as the main character from there it really starts to develop the story and actually becomes a pretty interesting film, it has little in the way of gore for a horror film and relies mostly on atmosphere, the occasional jump scare and some paranormal body manipulation. It must also be said that the ending is a little anti-climatic (although a simple post credit scene showcasing the future ramifications would have helped)

It isn't a normal movie, it's very different. There is a creepy atmosphere, When the girl, Hanna, is shown to be possessed by a supernatural and strong entity. The performance of all actors is very good, there is nothing to complain. The demon in the movie is very scary and made me jump with fright. I am really impressed with this movie, for the trailer don't appear so good, but the movie is incredible. I recommend for all people see this movie, especially those who like horror movies. The movie give scare, give emotion, give many scare feelings and the best thing is the incredible produced effects!!!!!!

I sort of appreciate what this was trying to do, honestly. I just wish it had done it better. The film really isn't the typical mainstream slasher/horror flick, and it knows how to build atmosphere... to a point. It just slogs throughout most of its running time, and it really seems like it goes nowhere. The biggest crime a horror film could make is be boring, and at times, this is incredibly dull. I like the destination and I like how it doesn't feel the need to speed up its pace, but the really thin screenplay and some questionable acting make this not very good. It's a pity too, because it really does have some nice scenes and atmosphere.